bankers, and merchants, were not gentlemen, and the
world, according to Miss Marrable's theory, was going astray, because
people were forgetting their landmarks.

As to Miss Marrable herself nobody could doubt that she was a lady;
she looked it in every inch. There were not, indeed, many inches of
her, for she was one of the smallest, daintiest, little old women
that ever were seen. But now, at seventy, she was very pretty, quite
a woman to look at with pleasure. Her feet and hands were exquisitely
made, and she was very proud of them. She wore her own grey hair of
which she showed very little, but that little was always exquisitely
nice. Her caps were the perfection of caps. Her green eyes were
bright and sharp, and seemed to say that she knew very well how
to take care of herself. Her mouth, and nose, and chin, were all
well-formed, small, shapely, and concise, not straggling about her
face as do the mouths, noses, and chins of some old ladies--ay, and
of some young ladies also. Had it not been that she had lost her
teeth, she would hardly have looked to be an old woman. Her health
was perfect. She herself would say that she had never yet known a
day's illness. She dressed with the greatest care, always wearing
silk at and after luncheon. She dressed three times a day, and in the
morning would come down in what she called a merino gown. But then,
with her, clothes never seemed to wear out. Her motions were so
slight and delicate, that the gloss of her dresses would remain on
them when the gowns of other women would almost have been worn to
rags. She was never seen of an afternoon or evening without gloves,
and her gloves were always clean and apparently new. She went to
church once on Sundays in winter, and twice in summer, and she had a
certain very short period of each day devoted to Bible reading; but
at Loring she was not reckoned to be among the religious people.
Indeed, there were those who said that she was very worldly-minded,
and that at her time of life she ought to devote herself to other
books than those which were daily in her hands. Pope, Dryden, Swift,
Cowley, Fielding, Richardson, and Goldsmith, were her authors. She
read the new novels as they came out, but always with critical
comparisons that were hostile to them. Fielding, she said, described
life as it was; whereas Dickens had manufactured a kind of life that
never had existed, and never could exist. The pathos of Esmond was
very well, but Lady